A WiFi Controlled RC Car with an IP Camera

Controlling your car over WiFi is good, but mounting a webcam on it so you can actually see where you’re going is even better. [Michael] goes over how he made his wifi car with some great videos in the post about it.

The car used is a seemingly standard RC unit, which came with a speed controller that was recycled for network use. [Michael] removed the standard radio, but having this controller available kept him from having to engineer an H-bridge circuit. The radio was then replaced with a WiFi module from Sparkfun.

There were a few problems with the IP camera to begin with, as the lag was originally unbearable. After some tricks that would qualify as a good hack in itself, the camera was eventually able to perform on an acceptable level and output data to the FLTK app he used to control everything. Check out one of his videos below of this car in action.

Just when I was getting ready to submit my project :P Oh well, I’ll post a full writeup in the forums after work today. Still working on an autonomous mode with OpenCV for my project, and an android remote app.
I’m using a pogoplug pro (with 802.11n), silabs 8051f342 toolstick, seeedstudio motor shield, logitech usb webcam, stock motors (for now), two 7.2V nicd packs, and a ton of leds. Software wise I’m running ArchLinuxArm with mjpg-streamer and a custom OSC server using liblo with libusb talking to the toolstick which controls the motors and lights.
Until I get around to writing my own android app I’m using OSCpad.
Most of the hardware was bought on clearance after christmas, except for the toolstick and pogoplug that are survivors from past projects now decommissioned.